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Should the Criminal Defendant Be Assigned a Seat in Court? |
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Steven Shepard [View as PDF]
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115 Yale L.J. 2203 (2006)
In this Comment I question the U.S. Attorney's claim that every criminal defendant should be required to sit at the table farthest from the jury. Courtroom seating is properly within a trial judge's discretion, and there are good reasons for seating some criminal defendants far from the jury. Yet there are also persuasive arguments, grounded in history and precedent, for why a trial judge should allow a well-behaved criminal defendant to choose for himself where he will sit. In Part I, I suggest that the criminal defendant's autonomy to choose his seat is an important aspect of the American courtroom tradition. In Part II, I argue that the defendant's well-established freedom to control some aspects of his appearance before the jury--by wearing civilian clothes rather than prison garb, for example--implies a freedom to choose the place of his appearance as well. Part III addresses the government's response to Ramsey's letter.
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